In this undated photo released by the Michigan Department of Corrections, Gregory Green is shown. The bodies of two young children and two teenagers were found at a Dearborn Heights, Mich., home early Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016 after Green called 911 to report that he had killed them, police said. Two girls, ages 4 and 5, were asphyxiated in a car using exhaust, while a 17-year-old girl and a 19-year-old male were fatally shot. Green's wife was shot and stabbed but is in stable condition and is expected to survive. Green, 49, is in custody. Green had served 16 years in prison for second-degree murder — the fatal stabbing of his pregnant wife in 1991, records show. (Michigan Department of Corrections)

Gregory Green is arraigned in 20th District Court in Dearborn Heights, Mich., on Thursday Sept. 22, 2016. Green is suspected of killing two young children and two teenagers and critically injured his wife at his at his Detroit-area home. (Max Ortiz/The Detroit News via AP)

Gregory Green is arraigned in 20th District Court in Dearborn Heights, Mich., on Thursday Sept. 22, 2016. Green is suspected of killing two young children and two teenagers and critically injured his wife at

DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich. (AP) — A Detroit-area man who served 16 years in prison for killing his first wife was charged Thursday with killing his two children and two stepchildren, and torturing his wife.

Prosecutors allege that Gregory V. Green bound his wife, cut her face with a box cutter and shot her in the foot before fatally shooting her teenage children in front of her Wednesday at the family's home in Dearborn Heights.

Green, 49, also is accused of killing his and his wife's young daughters by carbon monoxide poisoning at the home.

"The thought that you could do something to your own children has no correlation to any reason in my mind," police Capt. Michael Petri said outside court, adding that he was in "disbelief."

Green is charged with first-degree murder, assault, torture and other crimes. He heard the charges during a brief hearing Thursday and was returned to jail without bond. He wasn't accompanied by a lawyer.

Police said Green called 911 early Wednesday and confessed to the killings. His wife, Faith Green, had recently filed for divorce. She survived her injuries.

"The alleged evidence in this case will show an appalling level of domestic violence that ?was cataclysmic," prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a written statement. "We must push the issue of domestic violence back to the forefront and be constantly educated about it."

In her divorce filing, Faith Green cited a "breakdown in the marriage relationship." She also filed for divorce in 2013, but the case was dismissed for lack of action. A judge rejected a personal protection order that same year.

The Greens married in 2010, two years after Gregory Green left prison on his fifth request for parole. He pleaded no contest to killing his first wife, who was pregnant, in 1991.

No letters of opposition to his parole were filed before Green was released from prison, said Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Chris Gautz. Had Green not won parole at all during his time in prison, he likely would have been released in 2012 because of credits for good behavior, Gautz said.

Green now is accused of killing his two daughters, 4-year-old Kaleigh Green and 5-year-old Koi Green, and his stepchildren, 17-year-old Kara Allen and 19-year-old Chadney Allen.

Kara was a senior, cheerleader and member of the National Honor Society at Southfield High School for the Arts and Technology. Her brother graduated from high school in 2015.

Their father, Chadney Allen Sr., said he didn't know about any problems with Gregory Green.

"They didn't give me any red flags," he told Detroit television station WXYZ.